Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I always get worried when I here about five-year plans, and I heard about one today. Today we heard one of the good Labor senators talk about how they have a five-year plan for the education revolution. I was wondering where I had heard that before, and it took me back to the Gosplan of the Soviet Union. I think Pyatiletka is the Russian term for ‘five-year plan’, and that is really what we have here.

Labor senators talk about how they are going to move the country forward. I do not know if they have moved the country forward, but Mr Rudd certainly took off—he has taken off and has hardly ever come back. This man is the eternal global wanderer. He termed himself Kevin 07; it is like Kevin 07 and the Zip Pets. For the last 12 months they have shown our nation the light and the sacred drafts. Reflecting back on some of those sacred drafts the Labor Party have delivered to us, it is almost Pythonesque. Remember that Mr Rudd was going to have a new economic zone—a zone of Pacific peace. Apparently Mr Woolcott is the only one who wants to be in it. So far they only have one starter. These are ridiculous, hare-brained, pie-in-the sky ideas.

Then, of course, we had Fuelwatch. What a bastion of good thought that one was—another example of the acumen of the Labor Party! Maybe that was a one-off, but then we had GroceryWatch, which was another one of their great outcomes. They had a hothouse of thought to develop all of these plans. Then they had the 2020 Summit. Remember that? The world was going to change after the 2020 Summit. That was a brilliant piece of work! I am not quite sure what actually came out of that, but we saw Mr Rudd lounging around with his clipboard and an earnest look on his face as he took down notes, glanced at the camera, took down more notes, got a better angle, better light and then left. What else did we have? Look at the defence forces at the moment. The Australian Navy’s favourite tune is We will be home for Christmasbecause they will be. They are shutting down the whole show because of the completely incompetent management, not of the Navy, but of the government that sits behind it.

Then we have the ‘economic conservative’; the man who leads a government that in one fell swoop spent half the nation’s surplus without so much as a model. On 8 December we are going to see the expenditure of this money in pubs and clubs and electronic stores. We will see this money turning into poker machine revenue, into alcohol and into assaults. You will be able to pick a town near you, go to a certain hotel and see part of our nation’s surplus being spent for the social development of this nation. They are the sorts of hare-brained ideas that have been floating out of this government. Behind it all we have an absolute brainchild—the alcopops tax. Remember that one? They were going to raise $3.1 billion and they were going to spend $50 million to stop people drinking. These are the sorts of forces and ideas that truly encapsulate exactly what we have with this government.

The piece de resistance is that they managed to start with a $21.8 billion surplus and have blown it in their first year—and they blame the mining boom for that. The mining boom has not truly peeled off yet. It is an a posteriori complex that we have actually blown the money before the problem arrives. Now we are driving the nation into recession. They will have to borrow their $10.4 billion back, forcing up interest rates for households around this nation. This is the sort of government we have. It is an absolute debacle, and sooner or later people are going pick up on it.

I agree with Senator Forshaw when he says that this government is the most serious thing to happen to Australia since the financial crisis of the 1930s. He hit it on the head there. It will be a fascinating five-year plan that this Labor government rolls out for us. We have to remember that the Soviet Union had 13—the famous number—five-year plans. Unfortunately, we have the first one coming up to us right now, and it is showing all the hallmarks and acumen— (Time expired)

Question agreed to.